


Pretty, Witty Kitty Stuart

by thedivineastrea



Category: Charles II: The Power and the Passion, Historical RPF
Genre: 17th Century, Alternate History, Multi, Restoration England, We have a pretty witty princess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 01:54:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17878883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedivineastrea/pseuds/thedivineastrea
Summary: An historical AU in which King Charles II of England and Catherine of Braganza have one legitimate daughter, Princess Catherine, or 'Kitty' for short. It is told form her POV.





	Pretty, Witty Kitty Stuart

Today, I am sixteen.

When I was born, in the sweltering summer of 1663, it nearly killed my mother. She barely remembers, of course, I suppose she slipped in and out of this world as I was prized out of her and the memory lives in a haze. But even she, weary as she was, could not keep from asking the question that had hung in the heated atmosphere of her chamber in the preceding hours. Nay, the question had been on every courtiers’ lips since they saw that my mama was big with me a few months earlier. It found its way into every nook and cranny of the palace until it nearly drove my father out of his wits with worry and my mother into floods of tears as she felt her grip on what was expected of her in this new, alien land, loosen.

_Will it live?_

Then, suddenly, like the crack in the sky on earth’s first day, a cry. A yell.

‘The child lives, your Majesty!’

More wailing.

My mother registered it, like a light in thick mist. She grasped for this light, cautiously, anxiously. 

‘A son? Um príncipe?’

A brief silence. Held breaths and anxious glances punctuated it.

‘Tis a perfectly healthy girl, your Majesty. Uma princesa!’

Now, my mother is ashamed to own that, at this, she let out one, single sob. In this sob, there was to to be heard, if one had the ear for it, her oft-strangled desire to go home, back to Portugal, to her family. To leave this bleak, wet, heretic kingdom where she was barely trusted and had to look her husband’s concubine in the eye as she dressed her for dinner and chapel. And her only saving grace, in all this, was her ability to bear children, male heirs and prove herself a worthy investment, an obedient daughter, a good queen, and an accomplished woman. That whore, Castlemaine, would never again have had the gall to utter more than ‘Yea’ or ‘Nay’ in her presence had I been a boy and a prince. Alas, it was not to be. I am a girl. And so, God’s will be done.

My father, my _glorious_ father, did not hold the same reservations as mama.

‘Catherine, you clever, brilliant, beautiful creature! You brave, sweet girl!’ he had said, through his tears of both relief and joy, when he was finally allowed in to see us both, my mother and I.

‘It is a girl, your Majesty. I beg you would not pretend happiness.’

‘Happy? Catherine, I am more than that! I am quite paralysed with the joy of it. And I am relieved that you are well, too.’

Mama has oft told me since that when he reached across the silken covers to kiss her forehead, her sadness began to ebb. Perhaps, she had thought, it was not _so_ bad. We all lived to see another day, after all. She had been holding me in her arms all the while but now she suddenly _felt_ me, realised my weight, understood my shape, and noticed a tiny but fierce heartbeat.

‘She is a very beautiful baby’ she said, finally, looking at me properly now and feeling a pull from all directions, to embrace everything she loved, even in this cold little heretic backwater of a place where nothing worthy seemed sacred.

‘She is the prettiest lady in the kingdom. Only a little prettier than her sweet mother, I daresay.’

‘You are not sad that she is a girl? You would not prefer a son, sir?’

‘My dearest queen, she is born of you and I and increases my happiness by the minute. If she were a son, I should feel the same.’

My mother was charmed. This man, this king, was a strange, benevolent oddity, she thought, and she liked him all the better for it.

‘I suppose she is a princess.’

‘Yes, indeed.’

Papa was scooping me up in his own arms now, for the first time, though he had needed no encouragement to love me.

‘Princess Catherine Henrietta Mary Stuart of England!’ he declared, in his magnificent voice, all full of richness.

‘And Scotland, Ireland and France, Charles.’

My uncle, Jamie, the Duke of York, had arrived by now and was in the doorway, trying to scowl, but apparently, as hard as it is to believe with hindsight, even he found the joy infectious.

‘Details, Jamie. No matter, for she is so beautiful that she should be queen of the whole world, I will wager! Oh, my darling princess, how your father loves thee!’

And so, with that, I was set out on my way. To grow daily in the glorious shadow of my father, King Charles Stuart of England (and Scotland, Ireland and France!), the second of that name, loved intensely by him and my mother, Queen Catherine, who was once a princess of the Most Serene House of Braganza. I am their only legitimate child, a female heir in a world where women are not much listened to. There are always mutterings, most especially amongst the French members of my family and my cousin, King Louis of France, that a son is still preferable. I have the education of a prince, the shooting skills of a country squire, the music skills of a maestro, a little slew of feminine charms but lacking any real womanly beauty, and the wit of a libertine. But, perhaps, after all, they are right. Perhaps a prince would be best.

But today, I do not care. Because today, I am sixteen. And England, the centre of my universe, toasts to my good health and long life.

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter and first time using Archive of Our Own! I wonder where Kitty's story will go? (And I really do wonder, because even I, the writer, am truly none the wiser.)


End file.
